Now Beacon Hill may mess with time

Peter Shattuck, Massachusetts director of the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group, said the federal government experimented with shifting time patterns in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The law extended daylight savings time by four weeks – three extra weeks in the spring and one week in the fall. He said a report on the experiment indicated the nation as a whole shaved electricity consumption by .5 percent and by .7 percent in New England.

“That’s a pretty big impact,” said Shattuck, noting that energy savings resulted primarily because people use more energy at night than they do in the morning. By extending daylight hours, people use less electricity, he said.

Shattuck said he wasn’t troubled by Massachusetts acting unilaterally, suggesting other New England states might follow the Bay State’s lead. “We have to start the discussion somewhere,” he said.